INTRODUCTION. 



THE authors of our several Floras, and other systematic 

 writers, have been careful to translate the Greek and Latin 

 names of our plants, and, as far as it is known, to explain 

 their meaning, but have passed over the popular ones, as 

 though the derivation of these were too obvious to require 

 any notice. This is far indeed from being the case. Our 

 excellent lexicons and Latin dictionaries enable us in most 

 cases to understand the former with comparative facility, 

 but in the very backward state of English etymology, as 

 exhibited in books of reference, it is impossible, without 

 a great waste of time and trouble, to discover the real 

 meaning of the latter ; of those more particularly which 

 date from an early period. It is the object of the follow- 

 ing Vocabulary to supply the defect. 



The Anglo-Saxon names, during the period of nearly 

 five hundred years that intervened between the Conquest 

 and the revival of botanical inquiry in the sixteenth cen- 

 tury, had, the most of them, fallen into disuse, and been 

 replaced with others taken from Latin and French, or 

 transferred to plants to which they did not originally 



